Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

richard-1787 This movie has a great cast, headlined by Greer Garson and Clark Gable, and including Thomas Mitchell and Joan Blondell. The director, Victor Fleming, had given us such masterpieces as the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Captains Courageous. How then could such a group make such a truly awful movie? Well, to begin with, the script is awful almost past belief. It meanders from here to there, provides no decent motivations for the characters, who are at best two-dimensional caricatures. These characters are not interesting or even likable. And some of them disappear for long stretches of time.But everything is wrong here. Gable's character is thoroughly despicable. It's one thing to be a macho sort. Gable had brought that off, in spades, with Rhett Butler. But this sailor is both offensive and uninteresting.So then, why does Garson fall for him, and so quickly? There is no indication.Everything is wrong with this script. Garson and especially Gable try to salvage it, but it's a truly lost cause.Don't waste your time on this. Why MGM plunked its major stars into a truly lost cause I cannot guess.

secondtake Adventure (1945)Surely the title is a huge pun, or a huge mistake. This is an adventure of a man who is no longer looking for the high seas and wartime survival, but the adventure of love with a woman who is not, at fist his type. It's not as bad as some of the reviews suggest, but there is something steady and normal and incipient about it all. While featuring Clark Gable in the lead, and with the same director as Gone with the Wind a few years earlier, there is something stiff about it all, even the humor and fun. Greer Garson is the "serious" woman, someone who has to force herself to have fun, and Joan Blondell is the racy one, out for fun above all else. And if Gable seems suited to the crazy woman, he's clearly also set to be tamed by the other.That's pretty much the adventure, after a few wild scenes from kicking down the door in Chile to getting torpedoed by the Japanese. Garson can be impressive in her cultured way, but here she is hot and cold, on and off. It's partly her speeches are more words than meaning. There's nothing more boring than people talking about being exciting. If in one scene you'll be laughing as Gable and Garson trap some chickens, in the next you'll be forced to think deep thoughts about true adventure and true meaning—when in fact the meaning was in the chicken scene.Blondell never quite gets her due in many of her movies because she plays against (or in contrast to) the leading female who is more grand, or more beautiful, or just more star powered than she is. Too bad. She's fun but she also has fabulous screen presence. That, to me, is what matters most (often) in this era.The movie is too long in parts, and the theme wears thin after while. In the end it's about a sailor's life or the landlubber's, the first filled with freedom, the second with a home and a family. It's 1945, the soldiers are coming home—guess which side wins?

vincentlynch-moonoi Although this was Gable's return to the movies after World War II, it didn't feel like a post-war film. And that may have been the problem. Gable was back and Garson got him, but not many seemed to care. So much of the world had changed, yet some of the scenes here (such as the early bar room brawl) seemed like something you would have seen in a film from the thirties, not the later forties.Greer Garson, long one of my very favorite actresses, doesn't even show up in the film until 25 minutes into it. That makes sense in terms of the story, but it's quite odd. And, with the bitterness evident in the first meeting between seaman Gable and librarian Garson (particularly on the part of Garson...played to the hilt), it seems totally illogical that a romance would develop. Just as illogical as Greer Garson stealing chickens...and why exactly did they steal 3 chickens for a meal to feed 3 people? And why didn't the chickens squawk when they were hiding from the farmer who was chasing them? An interesting feature of the film was Thomas Mitchell's character's obsession with sin and the loss of his soul.It's also interesting to see some of the characters in this film who are not playing their usual roles.And, BTW, very low production standards...about the fakest background shots you'll ever see! A very disappointing film. I love Garson. I love Gable. But not together and not in a film with this plot.

samhill5215 Despite the bad reviews from others I watched this film with much anticipation. After all how bad could any movie be when it featured Garson, Gable, Blondell and Mitchell, and was directed by Victor Fleming. And at first it went along just fine although I must agree with the reviewer who remarked that the chemistry between Blondell and Gable was superior. They just sparkled, they were sexy, they oozed animal magnetism. That's not to say that Greer Garson didn't hold her own. In fact she was the glue that held the whole, confused thing together. Without her there was nothing to maintain the viewer's interest because quite frankly, after a while Gable's barking became just annoying. Perhaps the way he took charge was meant to convey care and affection but came across as arrogance and thoughtlessness. His tendency to overact was probably because this was his first movie after his wartime service but why didn't someone ask him to tone it down a few notches. So there you have it: a good story (that tends toward the melodramatic toward the end) and a great cast should have yielded a much better product.